Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Producer Dylan Clark on Building a Simian Empire

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Plus, whatever happened to James Franco’s character?

By Scott Collura

In the second part of our coverage from the set of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, we talk with producer Dylan Clark about the past, present, and future of the revived franchise -- including what the exact status is of James Franco and Freida Pinto’s characters from the previous film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Spoilers for that film obviously follow, but here’s a hint: It ain’t pretty.

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“I mean, they’re the ones that died,” Clark told IGN of Franco and Pinto’s characters on the New Orleans set of the film. “They were ground zero of the virus.”

Of course, the virus Clark is talking about is the Simian Flu, which was seen spreading at the end of 2011’s Rise and, by the time Dawn’s story picks up about a decade later, has wiped out about 90 percent of the world’s human population, even while allowing for Andy Serkis’ ape leader Caesar and his kind to establish a thriving colony of their own.

IGN and several other outlets visited the set of the film last summer, where we saw part of downtown New Orleans transformed into a post-Simian Flu, very end-of-the-worldy San Francisco. We spoke with Clark about not just the death of Franco’s Will Rodman, but also the fact that the character was meant to die in the first film anyway, while also delving into the evolution of Dawn, how to keep the Apes franchise going from here, and much more. Read on for the full interview, but you might want to put on a surgical mask and grab some hand sanitizer just in case…

Update: And now just this afternoon, EW is reporting (via The Playlist) that Franco's character has a posthumous cameo in Dawn "via video"... though Franco apparently didn't even know about it until the actor was told by EW. That said, I can't help but wonder if EW is off the mark here. It seems oddly similar to something Franco said way back in 2012 about conversations he had had with Rise director Rupert Wyatt before he left Dawn.

Dylan Clark: The truth is, in the first script, James dies. There was an ending shot with James not making it.

Question: Oh, it was even shot?

Clark: Oh yeah. It was shot both ways.

We hardly knew ya.

Question: I think that story came out.

Clark: Yeah, it did, and it’s not really a story. The truth is, we didn’t go with it not because it was a bummer ending. It was actually the right thing. When we developed the script it was Dr. Frankenstein -- he must be punished for his involvement. He’s culpable in this whole thing. So it seemed narratively correct. The staging of that was just, really, we just had one of those bad days. When we were shooting, it just didn’t -- it was hokey. It was hokey, the way he died. It was just lame. Even [Rise of the Planet of the Apes director] Rupert [Wyatt] said, “Oh, this is lame.” Also, we didn’t have the right goodbye in the way he died. Again, he had to say sorry to his son. That was clearly what we needed. He was unable to get Caesar out of prison, you know? And Caesar had to learn that horrible lesson, that he couldn’t rely on humans -- that in matters that were grey, it was going to be all about him. That was a big moment. James comes to get to him out, and he’s holding the leash. Caesar sees the leash and he goes, “Oh, you f#@ker. You f#@k.”

Question: Do you think it also speaks to the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ ending and Andy’s performance and what you guys have done with performance capture that you don’t need to bring Franco back?

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Clark: I think all of that helps. I think, again, you’ve just gotta stick with the basic story and go from there. When the first script was written, it was “Dr. Frankenstein did this, and he’s gotta pay,” and the virus is going to take care of how many -- but that was the story, that the apes live and the humans in our world don’t make it.

Question: At what point after Rise did you know Dawn was happening?

Clark: Well, many answers. The truth is, I always felt like [Rise writer-producers] Rick [Jaffa] and Amanda [Silver]’s idea on the script was to do a whole proper reboot, which meant not just three pictures, but as many as the characters demanded. Because I worked at a studio for most of my life before I started the company with Peter [Chernin] and started producing. You now see people remaking movies three years after the original. When I was at Universal, for instance, we did the Ang Lee Hulk, and then we did the Marvel Hulk maybe four years after that. And that made me realize that the studios felt most comfortable with branded IP -- and the audience too. They wanted it done properly. I get a little bit frustrated as an executive and as a producer and as a consumer to see things in that shortened cycle. This is a good idea -- it’s a contemporary Apes. There’s no reason you can’t have -- I used to just say eight because it was a made up number and it sounded good -- but you certainly didn’t have to limit yourself to three. But when you’re making a movie like that, you don’t think, “Oh, we’ve got this one in the bag.” Obviously we ended the way that we ended in case there was a sequel, and it was always important. I’d say to Rupert all the time, “God, we’ve got to get them off the bridge and into the woods, because they have weapons, and apes don’t have weapons yet. There’s no parity at all, so let’s just get them across the bridge so that we can figure out for the next one how the world feels a little bit more balanced and that you can have a real conflict.” That was important to me, the next big conflict. It also ended the virus story, I thought, pretty well. So it ended the first story, but it also definitely set up for the next, so that you knew humans were going to have to deal with something and that the apes were going to just be an afterthought. It wasn’t like -- just in that moment in time they were pissed off at a bunch of mutant apes that got across the bridge and maybe killed some policemen. But then their attention was going to go into a bigger pandemic.

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Question: And it’s also kind of in keeping with the Apes tradition of having sort of a twist ending.

Clark: Yeah, again, it was more to me about the practical and pragmatic kind of shoring up the story and setting up for the potential future in a way, again -- even on the bridge, we strained credulity; I mean, this helicopter comes with a .50 caliber and starts spraying bullets. You’re like, “Oh, Caesar, how are you going to get out of this one?” And he does, but you try to do it as -- and I’m sensitive, because I have three boys, 11, 9, and 7, and they’re going to go see this movie. So you’re sensitive to the gun violence and those kinds of things. But that’s the story. There’s going to be a battle on the Golden Gate Bridge, and there’s going to be shooting at apes, but you don’t want to see a bunch of apes massacred. So then you start thinking about the future. Also, it’s always through character. Rupert was great about that, and Matt’s great too. All of the decisions, the behavior, the plot choices come through character. Caesar’s not about killing a bunch of humans. In the first movie, he wants to get them out for freedom and to create a home. That was the trajectory of the journey, and it wasn’t about killing a bunch of humans with guns -- although he will fight back if he needs to. We also didn’t want to make him a wuss. We wanted to make him strong. That character is not afraid of fighting back, but he’s not looking for a fight. He’s not looking to kill somebody. But he did give Koba the nod to [Laughs] -- as long as we’re splitting hairs! Andy did not like that, because he wanted Caesar to take the high road. Initially, there were all kinds of thoughts, and I was of course the producer and said, “Well, you know what? Jacobs is there basically creating this problem for apes, so he has, to me, cause to kill this guy.” He even killed his mom in some way, but logically, practically in the movie, Caesar doesn’t know that. And Andy was like, “Caesar doesn’t know this man. Is he just going to kill him?” I was like, “I don’t know. What can we do?” So, “You know, Koba, he did some bad s#!t to you. You take this one.” He didn’t know, he just kind of turned his back. “I don’t know what Koba’s gonna do.”